The Congress-led coalition government will have to address the challenges of improving the country's infrastructure and modernise agriculture to ensure high growth of the economy, International Monetary Fund director Montek Singh Ahluwalia said on Thursday.
"If India wants to achieve the growth China has achieved, which we can achieve and which we need to achieve..., the country needs to improve the infrastructure," Ahluwalia said from Washington in a telephonic conversation with TV channel NDTV.
He said improving the infrastructure was a "major task" and the challenge before the new government was how to do it in the Indian environment.
The new PM would also have to modernise and diversify the agriculture sector through higher investments, he said.
"Over the last 10 years, the reforms introduced in the country have strengthened the economy but you need to take the reforms to more sectors," he said.
"While the reforms gave a lot of momentum to the modern sectors, the challenge that the new government faces is to carry these reforms to the agriculture sector."
Ahluwalia said he did not have any doubt that reforms would continue under Manmohan Singh's leadership. "(Manmohan) Singh has laid down the vision of modernising Indian economy."
"I think he referred to Rajiv Gandhi's vision. The emphasis is on the human face of reforms," he said.
"I am sure that our policies are not going to be guided by any other perspective."
